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Bluegrass Friday!

A Picture of Britain

New exhibition in the Tate (plus tv series and book) is being trailed in this weekend's papers. I'm determined to make it to this (for once).

Bewl Water

Just been here for the day - it's one of the seven wonders of the "Weald" apparently. Actually very good with an excellent adventure playground (Tom).

Sin City

Sometimes even I win things....such as an xfm competition to see "Sin City" at The Rex, which is an "exclusive members club with cinema" in Soho. Well, I'd planned to see the film anyway, and oh, might as well admit it, I was also enticed by the phrase "The film is to be introduced by Brittany Murphy and Jessica Alba so you won't want to be late." Hah! Yeah, a video introduction...how cheated do I feel....

Sin City is an adaptation of the comic book (or graphic novel, if you prefer ;) . It's all guns and girls and one-liners in the midst of mayhem. There isn't really a great deal to say about the film, since it's pretty much what you'd expect a (good) comic book adaptation to be: nothing too deep and meaningful, but plenty of action. It also has a weird and wonderful look, which at times leaves you wondering whether it's live action, CGI or animation. Most of the film is monochrome with colour used sparingly (a girl's eyes; blood on a face) which makes for some stunning visuals.

One problem I did have with the film is that I kept expecting the stories to merge at some point and they don't. It's more like "Tales from Sin City" where the viewer is given glimpses of the life of these weird characters.

Not one for the kiddies, it's unashamedly violent and old fashionedly sexist, in a film noir sense. Excellent fun.

Fitzrovian Facts!

The Fitzroy Tavern was built in 1897. Former regular Aleister Crowley invented a cocktail for the pub, the kubla khan no 2, from gin, vermouth and laudanum.

After all the writers moved onto the Wheatsheaf, the place became a gay hangout in the 50s, when such behaviour was illegal, but it got raided by the police.

Twenty Questions!

Anyone come across this neural network 20 questions game? It's slightly eerie how it successfully guesses what you're thinking about: http://www.20q.net

The Monastery

This was fantastic - did anyone else catch it?

London Compendium:

I bought a copy of The London Compendium at the weekend, and now intend to bore you at regular intervals with top facts about Fitzrovia.

Tonight: Adolf Hitler's half brother lived at 4 Percy St (the one between the Fitzroy and Tottenham Ct Rd), and Adolf visited him there in 1912.

Also: In 1640, the entire area was an estate, which was acquired by Henry Fitzroy, an illegitimate son of Charles II, who later became Earl of Euston.

The Sun

Slightly ashamed about finding this funny, but enjoyed the Sun's headline on Friday: Bush Probes Sadam's Pants. Sub-head was something along the lines of 'He's determined to get to the bottom of it'. It has become Viz. (This in response to their picture of Hussein in underwear on the previous day.)

Undiscovered Scotland

I know it's been linked to before, but it's worth mentioning again that the Undiscovered Scotland website is totally fantastic browsing fodder. I particularly like this bit.

Ahh, I am half in love with easeful middle age...

Respect!

On second thoughts, Galloway's alright after all.

Contemporary Scottish Bar in London...

Has anyone come across this? Maybe we should go for a Fitzroy Tuesday summer excursion?

http://www.albannach.co.uk/

More on What the Bleep

Dickie Dawkings having a pop in today's Grauniad. Bet the bloke from Edinburgh feels a bit foolish, his criticisms far milder than the rest of them.

The trailer's up

and it looks pretty good.

I really don't like George Galloway

I've no idea whether the current allegations are true or not, but he just referred to himself in the third person in his BBC interview. Never a good sign.

Another classic

Sorry to get there late, but we still managed to cover the following:

- arguments for Scottish independence vs devolution
- the open source brewery
- the new political landscape
- the work-life balance
- whether God is a fascist or not and if e=mc2 describes or governs the universe
- existentialist teleology

Anything else...?

Open Office

Has anyone (ie John or Seumas) tried the Open Office open source office suite?

Lookout v1.2

Lookout for Outlook. Incredibly useful if you use Outlook as your mail client...

What the Bleep Do We Know!? :: Official UK Site

What the Bleep Do We Know!? :: Official UK Site

Pub

So just to be clear, we are up for the pub this evening yeah? I can get there fairly early-ish...

There are more of us than I thought...

about 1.1 billion in fact...

a brilliant website

I particularly like the 'pictures of burning palaces' section:
http://www.throneout.com/palaces_on_fire.asp

This

Spanish ISP obviously didn't check with English speakers before choosing its name

I love this corny film

Now available on DVD. Has been impossible to get hold of until now - dodgy VHS tapes changing hands for £50 on ebay.

Tuesday 10th a go-er then?

I'm certainly up for it. There is plenty to discuss, and Charlotte St will be illumined by the clear light of an early summer evening.

VOTE LABOUR

VOTE LABOUR

New Yorker - Global Warming

Final part of a new yorker 3-parter on global warming. Also, did you see the Tony Blair profile, reprinted in the Observer on Sunday? Like most New Yorker features, about twice as long as it could have been, but quite interesting on the Iraq stuff...

Thames Water - New River

Interesting (in a North London-y kind of way) Thames Water site about the New River. Neither new nor a river...

flipping heck

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Hampshire | Car lands in home's upper floor

Drink

We haven't been for a pint for a while. Was just chatting to John and figured that next Tuesday (the 3rd) would be an appropriate date. What you guys reckon?

UPDATE: John isn't feeling too good. Can we try for next week instead? Maybe Tuesday 10th?

The Feds can own your WLAN too

Interesting article about how to hack WLANs

Immigration Facts Quiz

Praxis. Apparently, people born outside the UK contribute £2.5bn more in taxes than they take in benefits.

ya beauty

Google maps for UK. No satellite link yet however...

Laptop advice

I want to buy a new laptop, small to medium sized, preferably no more than £800.

I want one that's small and light enough to cart around with me, but not one of those pricey, really tiny ones that break easily and don't have any disc drives or anything.

Any tips re: brands and retailers? I'm not too fussy. Toshibas always seem to be pretty cheap for what you get - are they alright?

Hoist!

BBC NEWS | Election 2005 | Election 2005 | 'Islamists' hit Galloway meeting

HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

Tresor

has closed :-/

Are you a neocon?

Take the quiz. Apparently I'm a liberal - in the American sense anyway. I suspect everyone else reading this is too...

New pope was in Hitler Youth

Albeit against his will.

flickr

am investigating flickr - my photostream is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmain01/
anybody else got one?

Google satellite mapping

Google have recently bought keyhole.com - a firm specializing in satellite imaging - and have integrated the images with their own mapping functionality. It's pretty amazing - you can click on the "satellite" link at pretty much any zoom level to see the view from space. Unfortunately only US & Canada are covered in detail so far - it'll be brilliant when you can zoom in on Charlotte St...

Bush's ipod

What should be on it, and what's actually on it.

Scanning the monk

This whole neuroplasticity thing is extremely interesting.

you know blogger seems to have been a bit slow over recent weeks

apparently it's quite a widespread thing.

Science Fiction Hub

At University of Liverpool.

Get Stuffed

Islington's finest landmark.

Shooting Pains

Just read this on Popbitch:

"Matthew J Hogan has just been appointed by the
Bush Government as director of the Fish and
Wildlife Service. Interestingly, Hogan was the
lobbyist for Safari Club International - an elite
club of exotic animal trophy hunters, as well
as a keen exotic hunter himself.

SCI has 40,000 members, and promotes global
competitive trophy hunting, with Grand Slam
and Inner Circle competitions. These include
Africa Big Five (leopard, elephant, lion, rhino,
buffalo), North American Twenty Nine (one of
each species of bear, bison, sheep, moose,
caribou, and deer), Big Cats of the World and
Antlered Game of the Americas. To complete all
29 awards, a hunter must kill 322 separate
species. Enough to populate a large zoo.

(FYI: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is the
agency charged with granting or denying such
trophy import permits.)"

Are we actually living in some deranged, satirical novel? What the hell is going on over there? Is Bush the devil?

Battle for the black hole

Interesting tale of an Indian astrophysics student getting unfairly stuffed by the pre-war Cambridge establishment.

Colin's right, I can't get a template that renders properly in both Firefox and IE

Back to basics until I can devote some time to sorting this out?

Product Placement

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4391955.stm

I know the world has got more important things to worry about, but product placement is one of those corrosive things that convinces me that we are gradually slipping into ruin. Fifteen years ago the idea of novelists and songwriters being paid to mention brands in their work have been satirical. Now it's seen as the inevitable future of advertising..

Just sold my mountain bike as I never use it these days

And immediately started thinking about the one to buy when I get back up to Scotland. This one. A beauty.

Blair joins the wristband craze

Conviction politician or opportunist? I think Blair manages to be both, somehow. (I'm probably voting Labour again this year).

Actually this one is even better!

http://www.luckykazoo.com/media/2005/03/e-sure-remix.html

Cillit Bang Remix

http://www.luckykazoo.com/media/2005/03/cillit-bang-remix.html

Granta: The Factory

Excellent new Granta this quarter (89: The Factory). (Annoyingly www.granta.com is still showing the previous edition) . A good mix of fiction, social history and feature journalism around manufacturing, particularly its decline in UK.

Could be early signs of something analogous to 18th century pastoralism in literature: a celebration and nostalgia for industrialism, in the same way that writers once addressed the agrarian economy (of course, as discussed in Fitzroy, both were shit).

Cripes...

'Big cat' attacks man in garden

City Churches

Went to a function at St Mary at Hill yesterday, a Wren church just off East Cheap. Astonishing, beautiful place. Even at weekends there is a sense of some ineffable energy in the City - the 1000 year old streets connecting the most ancient structures with the most modern...

Mr Magoo Goes to the World Bank

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/03/17/wolfowitz_nomination/index.html

slow blogger

blogger *has* been pretty slow the last couple of days. i reckon we should monitor the situation with a view to moving to a different platform at some stage. am going to try and set something up when I get some free time...

False Dawn

Spring is in the air! It's sunny and warm! Yay! Winter's over! (As with every year at this time, this does of course mean that it's bound to snow at the weekend.)

Bloggies

Gah! Fitzrovian passed over again in the weblog awards.

Grime Scene

Bloody hell, grime in The New Yorker. Nekkle!

On the Roof

My flatmate interviewed the writer Geoff Dyer the other day. This is quite a nice piece by him in an old Granta, about being a dole-bludging, aspirant writer idler in Brixton in the eighties - ending with some reassurance for those of us in the rat race who yearn for a life of chat and books instead.

Seeing spots

What's going on? What happened to comforting, familiar orange and white Fitzrovian? I'm in early middle age - I'm resistant to change! By the way John, do you know they're making a film of this?

comic relief

http://bbc.co.uk/rednoseday tel. 0857 910 910

google adwords

Guys, why don't we start running adwords on our site? I'm sure advertisers would love to get access to our high quality content and affluent audience. It could pay for drinks at the Fitzroy.

http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour/

Shared online diaries

Anyone know any cheap/free shared online diary/collaboration services that we could use at work? We don't use MS Exchange Server / Outlook, so can't go down that route.

don't DON'T PANIC

Experts weigh super-volcano risks

Ah well, important to get all this stuff into some kind of perspective... ;-)

Independent Labour Party

Anyone know anything about the ILP? Mentioned in this Times obituary about recently dead, interesting Scottish writer Robin Jenkins.

Weather

Real snow in London and one of the fastest ever bus journeys into work this morning - not very much traffic on the roads at all. I assume this means vast swathes of London's drivers decided to take the day off today or were stuck in huge tailbacks somewhere beyond the M25...

Hope is key to future Scotland

Demos reckons that "There’s a fatalist tendency in Scotland that stops people seeing ways to change their own lives and their communities".

I love America...

Or at least the bottom half of it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4312181.stm

The Portable Virtual Privacy Machine

(A review by Phaemon)

A few months back I linked to this Virtual Machine you could run from a USB drive. At the time, I'd intended to try it out as I was expecting to get a 1GB USB drive from work. It mysteriously got lost on its way to me , so I'm still waiting for one. However, I realised that I could just run the thing from my harddisk, so here's a review to let you know what it is, what it's like and what it's used for.

First, from the above link, I just clicked the Download button and then downloaded the .zip file. It's about 87 MB, so not one for those on dial-up! I then unzipped it to a folder on my Desktop, double-clicked the qemu-win.bat file, as the readme.txt had instructed, and pressed Enter to start the boot. If I was on a linux machine, I would run the boot-linux.bat file instead. (screenshot)

It then opened a window that looked like a computer booting Linux. It detected the hardware, and found my network connection. This is the point where I realised that this is *slow*. I guess it's a full machine emulator, but even running on a 3 GHz Hyperthreaded P4, 512 MB RAM, it's pretty sluggish. I did notice that it only saw one of the processors (hyperthreading means the operating system should see two). I guess at least that had the advantage of letting me write this at the same time without slowing my machine completely to a crawl. (screenshot)

When booting was done I was left at the default desktop (screenshot) Notice at the top it says "QEMU - Press Ctrl-Shift to exit grab" This just means you press Ctrl-Shift to return the mouse cursor control to Windows. It's also obvious from the screenshot that they've based this on Damn Small Linux (DSL).

Next, to try out some web browsing (yes, I know the Dillo web browser is already running; I mean on Firefox). I double clicked on Firefox and....well, it just worked...the same as running it in Windows really. These guys have a bit of an intimidating home page, but since they're trying to sell their security stuff I guess that's understandable! (screenshot) I've blotted out the network details, since they're mine, but it's pretty much what any website sees when you visit it. It's worth nothing that Firefox took 30 seconds to start, though it might have been a bit quicker as I'd made an earlier configuration error while messing around which could have slowed it down. More on this later...

OK, it can run off any drive, including USB stick, so it's Portable. It's runs in an emulator, so it's Virtual. What about the Privacy bit? Well, that's the Metropipe Tunneler icon you saw on the Desktop. I double click that, click Start Tunnel and when it says Tunneler Connected I can start (or restart) Firefox. See the difference? (screenshot) I'm now connected with an encrypted connection through Metropipe's servers. No website knows where I'm coming from, and the connection is encrypted right to my Desktop. Very easy.

Well, that's about it. Any changes you make are saved in the folder you run it from, so you can use any computer running either Windows or Linux with a net connection, to get on the net without altering their configuration in any way, and with your own customised one. I think this is a project with a lot of potential. Well worth a shot if you've got around 90 Meg of free disk space...

Pros:
Free to download and use
Easy to setup (almost no setup really!) and run
Privacy and a virtual machine all in one little useful package
Can run from a folder on a harddisk or off USB stick
Can run on any Windows or Linux machine

Cons:
Slow
No MacOS X support (yet; it's apparently coming)
Not running the latest software

[OK, the problem mentioned earlier and described below was my own stupid fault. I closed the Tunneler without stopping it. You'd think I could manage an application that has just two buttons...]

(Oh yes, I promised to mention that problem with starting Firefox. It was that I'd run the Tunneler in a previous session and it automatically set it up to use the Tunneler (as a proxy). When I went back in I'd forgotton to turn it off, and it had saved the setting. I now don't seem to be able to make it remember to NOT use a proxy. I can set it and run it, but if I restart Firefox, it's looking to go through the Tunneler again. Odd bug, but nothing major. I could probably fix it if I really looked...)

Freecycling

Anyone see the article about Freecycle in the Observer on Sunday? Nice idea - like ebay, but you give stuff away. There's a London group.

If Fitzrovians ran the world..

http://www.hallmundur.com/goodle/goodle.htm

Last Night

Yes, an absolute classic. A wide ranging and vibrant discussion in which we managed to cover:

- the scope for technology to solve global warning
- Colonising Mars and the likelihood of achieving nuclear fusion
- John's OCD, Seamus's mania and my "bog-standard depression"
- Status anxiety and life expectancy
- merits of service vs industrial vs agrarian economy
- The tyranny of all commercial organisations
- Buddhism/depression as survival mechanisms for the modern world
- House prices in London and Edinburgh
- The conditions required for communism to exist

Also note: I owe Seamus £20

An excellent evening last night, though can't think of any links to post as a follow up...

From today's Onion

Bush Determined To Find Warehouse Where Ark Of Covenant Is Stored
WASHINGTON, DC—In a surprise press conference Monday, President Bush said he will not rest until the warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant, the vessel holding the original Ten Commandments, is located. "Nazis stole the Ark in 1936, but it was recovered by a single patriot, who braved gunfire, rolling boulders, and venomous snakes," Bush said, addressing the White House press corps. "Sadly, due to bureaucratic rigmarole, this powerful, historic relic was misplaced in a warehouse. Mark my words: We will find that warehouse." Bush added that, after they are strengthened by the power of the Ark, U.S. forces will seek out and destroy the sinister Temple of Doom.

Work Your Proper Hours Day

This Friday.

WordPress

WordPress - open source blogging software. As used by mySociety - who have, incidentally, recently launched WriteToThem.com, which looks useful - rant to your elected representatives as well as on this blog.

microsoft guide to understanding your children

1337!

bit of a Monday morning shock

Hunter S Thompson commits suicide

Fitzrovian Thursday

Anyone up for the pub on Thursday evening? I am and I think Seumas is as well...

Neal Stephenson interview

Quite a bit shorter than the Alan Moore one. Interesting to contrast the two writers - Stephenson uber-rationalist, Moore (literally) a magician...

Educational Jargon Generator

Educational Jargon Generator

Stop the War March

It's two years today since this. (Also the setting of new Ian McEwan novel.)

Cosgrove Puts the Boot In

We Scots are still recovering from our industrial tsunami

Alan Moore interview

Interesting (and long) interview with a genuine genius. (Don't agree with his assertion that consciousness is predicated on language however).

Vietnam Syndrome

“United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam’s presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson’s policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam.”

- Peter Grose, in a page 2 New York Times article titled, ‘U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote,’ September 4, 1967.

fitting in nicely with the current focus of fitzrovian tuesdays...

The UK weather blog! Particularly impressed with the link to the Crouch End weather forecast.

Carbon Balancing?

Am thinking of paying to plant some trees, in order to 'carbon balance' my forthcoming air trip to Melbourne.

However, not actually sure if it's worth doing or not. Interesting science/public policy discussion on the subject here: http://www.rockfax.com/forums/t.php?t=114895 seems to suggest that it might not be worth it.

All Fitzrovian views welcome...

International Internet-Free Day

Found this on the Demos blog: Internet-Free Day.

This season I will mostly be wearing...

Who's for an Asteroids t-shirt then? I don't really understand the geek ones though.

Landlord

This guy is going to be my new landlord. What amazes me is that there's a photo of Mike Flowers in the national portrait gallery...

Browser Wars Escalate

There are more options than Internet Explorer or Firefox, but be careful which ones you choose! He was probably a terrorist anyway...

The case of the missing crisis

Some interesting stuff about Bush's plans to cut social security, what this would mean (according to Krugman), and some parallels with Britain by someone from the FT and Krugman again.

Worried? Us?

Being a glutton for punishment, thought I'd have another look at this story in Granta, that terrified me a year or so ago.

very sorry to see this on the bbc site today

Tumour diary: The time has come

blogs: a paedophile's dream?

This is the kind of idiotic rubbish that makes me despair of mainstream politics. It seems that all politicians are happy to agree on something provided it completely misses the point and can be guaranteed to terrify the populace.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4209801.stm